National accounts for Bulgaria are compiled according to the main methodological recommendations of the documents "System of National Accounts, 2008" (SNA 2008), an issue of EUROSTAT, IMF, OECD, UN and the World Bank, and "European System of Accounts, 2010" (ESA 2010), an issue of EUROSTAT. According to the ESA 2010 employed covers all persons - both employees and self-employed, engaged in some productive activity that falls within the production boundary of the system. Employees are defined as all persons who, by the agreement, work for another resident institutional unit and receive remuneration as a compensation of employees. The following categories are included: employees working under employment, civil or working without a contract. Self-employed persons - persons who are the sole owners, or joint owners of unincorporated enterprises in which they work. The indicator Hours worked is refer to the same categories for employment data.

Classification system

National accounts aggregates by industry (up to A*64). ESA2010 uses aggregation levels of the NACE Rev.2 classification to define industry breakdowns (NACE stands for Nomenclature générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes). NACE Rev.2 is a classification of economic activities widely used in statistics and in other domains. Requirements for the transmission of NACE Rev.2 series have been specified in the Commission Regulation (EC) No 715/2010 of 10 August 2010

Sector coverage

National accounts describe the total economy of a country. All units that have their centre of predominant economic interest in the economic territory of that country are covered. Two of the most important breakdowns are the breakdown by institutional sector and the breakdown by NACE Rev. 2 activity. Concerning the institutional sector breakdown, ESA 2010 distinguishes five mutually exclusive domestic institutional sectors: (a) non-financial corporations; (b) financial corporations; (c) general government; (d) households; (e) non-profit institutions serving households. The five sectors together make up the total domestic economy. Each sector is also divided into subsectors.Regarding the activity breakdown, ESA 2010 applies NACE Rev.2. Activities can be broken down into several levels of detail, for example into 3, 10, 21, 38, 64 or 88 activities. At the 'highest' level a breakdown into 3 categories is defined: (a) agriculture, forestry and fishing; (b) mining and quarrying, manufacturing, electricity gas steam and air conditioning supply, water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities, construction; (c) services.Annual national accounts refer to the whole economy.

Statistical concepts and definitions

All statistical concepts and definitions to be used in national accounts are described in Annex A of the ESA 2010 Regulation (link to blue book on ESA 2010 methodology). The two main sets of tables concern: (a) the institutional sector accounts; (b) the input-output framework, and the accounts by industry. According to the ESA 2010 employed covers all persons - both employees and self-employed, engaged in some productive activity that falls within the production boundary of the system. Employees are defined as all persons who, by the agreement, work for another resident institutional unit and receive remuneration as a compensation of employees. The following categories are included: persons engaged by an employer under a contract of employment;· civil servants and other government employees whose terms and conditions of employment are laid down by public law; the armed forces, consisting of those who have enlisted for both long and short engagements and also conscripts; owners of corporations and quasicorporations if they work in these corporations; students who have a formal commitment whereby they contribute some of their own labour as an input into an enterprise?s process of production in return for remuneration and (or) education services; · outworkers if there is an explicit agreement that the outworker is remunerated on the basis of the work done that is, the amount of labour which is contributed as an input into some process of production; disabled workers, provided the formal or informal relationship of employer to employee exists; persons employed by temporary employment agency; persons temporary not at work if they are in: the continued receipt of wage or salary, an assurance of return to work following the end of the contingency, or an agreement as the date of return. Self-employed persons are defined as persons who are the sole owners, or joint owners, of the unincorporated enterprises in which they work. Self-employed persons also include the following categories:unpaid family workers, incl. those working in unincorporated enterprises engaged wholly or partly in market production; outworkers whose income is a function of the value of the outputs from some process of production for which they are responsible; persons employed in the enterprise engaged in the manufacture entirely for their own final consumption. For the same categories, are available data for hours worked.

Statistical unit

National accounts aim to capture economic activity within the domestic territory. They combine data from a host of base statistics, and thus they have no common sampling reference frame. The elementary building blocks of ESA 2010 statistics are statistical units and their groupings. ESA 2010, defines two types of units, institutional units and local kind-of-activity units (ESA 2010, 1.54). Following the ESA 2010 2010 guidelines, in national accounts two types of units and two corresponding ways of subdividing the economy are used: (a) institutional unit; (b) local kind-of-activity unit (local KAU). The first type is used for describing income, expenditure and financial flows as well as balance sheets. The second type of units is used for the description of production processes and for input-output analysis.

An institutional unit is an economic entity characterised by decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its principal function. A resident unit is regarded as constituting an institutional unit in the economic territory where it has its centre of predominant economic interest if it has decision-making autonomy and either keeps a complete set of accounts, or is able to compile a complete set of accounts.A local KAU groups all the parts of an institutional unit in its capacity as producer which are located in a single site or in closely located sites, and which contribute to the performance of an activity at the class level (four digits) of the NACE Rev. 2.An institutional unit comprises one or more local KAUs; a local KAU belongs to one and only one institutional unit.

Statistical population

The national accounts population of a country consists of all resident statistical units (institutional units or local KAUs, see section 3.5). A unit is a resident unit of a country when it has a centre of predominant economic interest on the economic territory of that country — that is, when it engages for an extended period (one year or more) in economic activities on this territory.

Reference area

The reference area for national accounts is the total economy of a country. The total economy of a country can be broken down into regions. The NUTS classification provides a single, uniform breakdown of the economic territory of (the Member States of) the EU.

Time coverage

data starting from 2000

Base period

NA

Statistical processing

Source data

Sources of data are statistical surveys are LFS and Quarterly and Annual statistical report on employees and wages and salary. Annual data are sum of quarterly data.

Frequency of data collection

Annual.

Data collection

Sample surveys.

Data validation

Implementation of validated procedures for assessing data quality

Data compilation

Implementation of validated procedures for assessing the quality of data and the development of estimation of the completeness of the data.

Adjustment

Quality management

Quality assurance

Quality is assured by strict application of ESA 2010 concepts and by thorough validation of the data.

Quality assessment

Relevance

User needs

National Accounts data is key information for economic policy monitoring and decision making, forecasting, for administrative purposes and for information of the general public and for economic research. Users of quarterly and annual national accounts data are typically interested in analysing structural changes in the economy from a medium-term perspective.

User satisfaction

Completeness

BG NSI follows up the interest perceived from users on the basis of databases and downloads of the data.

Data completeness - rate

Accuracy and reliability

Overall accuracy

BG NSI publishes all revision and explanations of the data.

Sampling error

Sampling errors - indicators

NA

Non-sampling error

NA

Coverage error

NA

Over-coverage - rate

NA

Common units - proportion

NA

Measurement error

NA

Non response error

NA

Unit non-response - rate

NA

Item non-response - rate

NA

Processing error

NA

Imputation - rate

NA

Model assumption error

NA

Seasonal adjustment

NA

Data revision - policy

National data are revised according to national schedules, and revisions are transmitted to Eurostat. Figures for the quarterly aggregates are revised on the base of new annual information. These dates are pre-announced in the release calendar on BG NSI's web-site. On these occasions, previously published figures are subject to revision for all variables and all quarters.

Data revision - practice

National accounts data are subject to continuous routine revisions as new input data becomes available. This will typically also entail revisions of the national accounts aggregates, which are derived from these data. In BG national accounts two types of revisions are: Regular – quarterly, preliminary, final data; and Major - based on implementation of new methodology or GNI reservations.

Data revision - average size

Timeliness and punctuality

Timeliness

Time lag - first results

The data transmitted to Eurostat are in compliance with ESA 2010 DTP and respective derogations for the country.

Time lag - final results

The data transmitted to Eurostat are in compliance with ESA 2010 DTP and respective derogations for the country.

Punctuality

Punctuality - delivery and publication

The data transmitted to Eurostat are in compliance with ESA 2010 DTP and respective derogations for the country.

Coherence and comparability

Comparability - geographical

The comparability is insured by the application of common definitions of ESA 2010

Asymmetry for mirror flows statistics - coefficient

Comparability - over time

By using a common framework, the European System of Accounts ESA 2010, data can be comparable over time.

Length of comparable time series

Coherence - cross domain

Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics

Annual and quarterly data for all sub domains of national accounts should be coherent.

Coherence - National Accounts

Annual and quarterly data for all sub domains of national accounts should be coherent.

Coherence - internal

Annual and quarterly data for all sub domains of national accounts should be coherent.

Accessibility and clarity

News release

NA

Publications

website of BG NSI

On-line database

Data are available to all users of the NSI website under the heading Macroeconomic statistics -http://infostat.nsi.bg/infostat/pages/module.jsf?x_2=197

Data tables - consultations

Micro-data access

NA

Other

NA

Metadata - consultations

Documentation on methodology

European System of Accounts (2010) (Eurostat). The methodology is also available on BG NSI website.

Metadata completeness – rate

Quality documentation

Quality is assured by strict application of ESA 2010 concepts and by thorough validation of the data

Cost and burden

NA

Confidentiality

Confidentiality - policy

Law on Statistics; Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society. The European Statistics Code of Practice provides further conditions that have to be respected by statistical offices in regard to statistical confidentiality (Principle 5): The privacy of data providers (households, enterprises, administrations and other respondents), the confidentiality of the information they provide and its use only for statistical purposes are absolutely guaranteed.

Confidentiality – data treatment

If data are with a confidentiality flag or are under an embargo date, these data are not published.